Don’t worry, contrary to what some politicians would want us to believe, the lights are not going out.
There is a world -wide abundance of energy to keep ‘em on ,but if they do go out, it will be because our politicians have failed us.
Whilst there is national,and international debate re possible climate change, controversy as to its causes , if any , and action required , if any, the basic fact is we are not about to run out of energy, but governments and international agencies have their own energy, and as a consequence their environmental agenda, and sometimes they conflict.
The media fuel the debate from extremes of expert knowledge to abject ignorance, tending to reflect, or sustain the perspective of their readership , and/or uncritically the perspective of their patron or sponser.
We live in the era of ‘instant information’ which, regretably, has resulted in swathes of uncritical ‘copy’ and ‘ paste’.
NTA will endeavour, with critical knowledge,to address, and report on the energy and environmental issues with regard to off-shore wind.
Similarly NTA will offer, with each monthly update a selection of media reportage on the issues .
Please click on the links below to the sub-sections
Tourism a letter to The Scotsman, scotsman.com 1st Feb
Tourism
You reported on explanations for why tourism figures have fallen (28 January). The fall should be looked at in a longer time frame to see how disastrous it is for the biggest industry in Scotland.
The last successful year for Scotland in terms of, for example, American tourists, was 2006 when 475,000 visited Scotland, contributing 25 per cent of expenditure. Even in 2009 when America was targeted for Homecoming there were only 352,000 visitors contributing to 17 per cent of expenditure.
New Zealand would attract a similar type of tourist looking for unspoilt scenery but its tourism figures do not show the same year-on-year decline of tourists from America. They have not covered their beautiful land with wind turbines.
The government-sponsored Moffat study in 2008, based on a much smaller number of projected wind farms than is now planned, admitted that the percentage of tourists who disliked wind farms would go elsewhere.
They assumed “the elsewhere” would be in Scotland. Could it be that the tourists who replied to surveys saying they would not return if turbines were built actually meant it?
All the accommodation providers within 2.5 km of the Auchencorth wind farm proposal (132 tourist beds) agreed that the wind farm would affect business but the tourist board did not assist in the defeat of the proposal. Wind farm developers just say it can’t be proved that wind farms affect tourism.
It is about time common sense prevailed and tourism chiefs spoke up for their industry. Another wind farm three miles away from Auchencorth at Leadburn, Spurlens Rig, now threatens the tourist route from Edinburgh to Peebles. What a welcome at the Gateway to the Borders. Which alternative route could be used?
Celia Hobbs
Peebles Road
Penicuik, Midlothian
I urge all to look at the proposed areas for possible future development of Tiree’s waters.
Our Island will simply become a huge transformer. The birds will have no safe way to our Island. Tourism will die and those who decide to stay will be mobed by helicopters and worried by the HUM of HV…if the power company get to build the proposed array this will open the door to Tiree’s demise…
How can anybody support this horror
VC Scarinish
I always wonder why people decide to hide behind a name, rather than tell us who you are!! It does`nt matter what you post on here, everyone is allowed to have an opinion on here, regardless of what your views are.
Tho i have noticed that some people who choose to sit on the fence or are for the array to go a head seem to always get critisism from some members of this forum. In my opinion, some people need to respect other people`s views and not get petty in there reply posts as it only comes across to most as childish.
Again, my opinion, not everyone else`s.
Regards
John
Mod’ s comments :
(1) Re “ hiding behind a name “ . NTA was severely chastised in its early days for being pro-active in this respect by revealing the identity “ behind the name “ .
(2) NTA receives a considerable number of spams. Some are very obvious and are trashed immediately eg offers of Viagra , or in Russian !! . Some are quite credible.
(3)Re the latter , NTA endeavours to “check” these out . If there is no response ,then these also are trashed.
(4) Re criticism . Criticism is a component of debate, but ,criticism of criticism,tends to be subjective.
(5) NTA’s “posting guidelines” are clearly stated on its home page.
I don’t think you can blame people in a small community for posting anonymously. I am sure there are many on Tiree who have strong opinions one way or the other who will not post at all, either for fear that their anonymity is not guaranteed or just from a long tradition of keeping their heads down and not getting involved.
Happy New Year, hope the recent storms were not too hard on you.
Happy 2012 Webcraft.
Seems our Tilley was hit by lightning and needs or needed repair and the new turbine at the Rural Center self destructed ! needless to say we have also suffered from outage. Perhaps SPR would like to invest in burying our transmission lines ? I was off the island through the biggest blow, but given it’s size I doubt any construction work or indeed future proposed array would have escaped unscathed. Maybe Tiree is simply too windy LOL.
Regards
Karl
Hi,
Having been involved in Oil Shale exploration especially Cheverons Polish Exploration, let me assure all that to be commercially viable the oil/ gas shales of Poland are only economically viable by over inflation of Oil prices. I can assure all that current viable reserves of Oil are going to be around for at least the next 100 years as the major driver of world economics and, when it is finally to expensive to burn in our cars, aircraft, support our plastics, chemical needs etc it is an easy enough process to extract it from coal. Coal by the way is easier to process than oil shales, so when the easy oil and shale has gone, the world will go back too exploiting it’s vast reserves of coal.
Wind energy on a commercial scale will do nothing to reduce current CO2 levels, it is simply a top up / option for future needs. Sad but true.
Karl